


Web Of Lies

by ElementalGhosting



Category: Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, School, YouTube, none of the hermits are youtubers except Grian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElementalGhosting/pseuds/ElementalGhosting
Summary: He’s a quiet teacher’s pet by day and the Minecraft youtuber Grian by night. His channel has been growing quickly, and he’s afraid that his friends or family will find out about his secret second life. But hey, what are the chances? His school is tiny, and he has never given out any personal information online, including his face.But there’s just one problem... one of his friends from school starts to develop a crush on his YouTube persona, and his web of lies starts to unravel before his very eyes.Formerly called My Name Is Xelqua.
Comments: 45
Kudos: 127





	1. The Start

Xelqua was finally home from school. He slipped off his multicolored sneakers and trudged into the kitchen. 

A whiteboard was pinned to the fridge with an assortment of different magnets. Scrawled across it with a fading red marker were the words, _“_ _I’ll be home at 8, -Doc_ _”_.

The strawberry blonde groaned and grabbed himself a packet of Doritos from the cupboard. He fled up the stairs to his bedroom, preparing to wait for his brother‘s return. Pearl wove between his legs, a suspicious object between her jaws. 

Sighing, he bent down to her level and held out his hand. She rubbed her muzzle against his fingers and purred, dropping whatever was in her mouth. Xel rubbed her between the ears, grinning as her tail waved happily. 

Xelqua pulled his purring ball of fluff onto his lap, sitting on the middle step of the staircase. He decided to check out the suspicious object, which revealed itself to be a magnet. She probably stole it off the fridge. 

It was a graphic of a creeper, a present that his brother bought for him at Minecon a few years back. 

He smiled fondly, his memories of the game of Minecraft rushing back. 

Seeing as he did all of his homework in study hall and single-handedly completed the assigned group project, he decided that a little bit of entertainment couldn’t hurt. 

It’s not like he had any friends to call up, anyway. 

He looked down at Pearl. “That’s something to do, ey?”

He gathered his cat and placed her gently on the stairs, slipping the magnet into his pocket. 

Busting open the door to his room, he sat down at his chair and turned on his computer, paying no attention to the other cat, Maui, sleeping on his bed. 

For the first time in three years, he booted up Minecraft. 

~~~~~

3 hours later, and Xelqua was still playing. The nostalgia of the game was overwhelming. He remembered the controls as soon as he opened a new world, and the crafting recipes came back as well. 

He had several eyes of ender, full diamond armor and gear, and an abundance of blaze rods. In another hour, he could probably beat the ender dragon!

Suddenly, a thought came to him. He had a screen recording program installed on his computer, but he never got a chance to use it. 

Why not try it out?

Xelqua filmed the rest of his Minecraft journey, commentating into his old headset mic. He was a bit rusty at first, but soon got into the flow of the video, even making a few jokes. 

He finished the video with a little outro, like those other Minecraft youtubers he watched. “Well, that’s it for today’s episode of Minecraft survival. Thanks for watching and goodbye!”

He pressed the button to end the recording and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. 

That felt... amazing!

“Wow,” he mumbled to himself, taking off his headphones. 

He spent the rest of the day editing his video with a free software. He added some music and a few loud sound effects that even he had to admit sounded forced. 

Never would Xelqua have expected that his cheesy, badly-done YouTube video would absolutely blow up overnight. He woke up in the morning to a torrent of notifications. Hundreds of new subscribers, and even more likes and comments. 

He stared at the computer monitor, mouth wide open in shock. 

“Oh my goodness...”

**This part of the story is inspired by the story** ** _I’m the Bad Boy (duh)_ _by KitsuneInTheFlesh_ on Wattpad. Go show them some love! **  
  


** If you enjoyed, be sure to leave a kudos or comment! There will also be a Grian ship in here, so recommend your favorites ;) **


	2. The Project

One of the worse struggles of being a YouTuber has to be the fanbase.

Your fans might be wholesome and supportive. They might be toxic and sarcastic. They might worship you like some sort of god amongst men. Some might even write strange fanfiction about you or your friends!

Out of all of these, the one that Xelqua dreaded most is that his fans were people that he knew. 

It had been a couple of years since the boy had started up his channel. He quickly established a name for himself as Grian, the professional Minecraft builder, and gained a loyal fanbase of almost a million subscribers after collaborating with others in the same genre such as Taurtis, SamGladiator, ibxtoycat and Salted. 

His followers were mostly kind to him, and he was eternally grateful to have them. 

Doing YouTube was the first thing in a while that made him genuinely happy. 

~~~~~

A guy with a grey creeper graphic on his shirt aggressively slammed his textbook onto the wooden surface of the table, making everyone near him slightly jump. 

“Alright! Ideas!”

Xelqua’s newly-assigned group for the English project couldn’t look less interested.

The guy sitting next to him pulled his shades down, peering over them at the self-made group leader. “I don’t know, my dude, who are we going to choose to be our “biggest role model”? He made sarcastic air quotes with his free hand as he said his last three words. 

A girl in a pink cardigan giggled. “This seems like something stupid we’d do in the fifth grade. Can’t we make a presentation on climate change or something?”

Even though he didn’t want to disagree with his teacher’s ideas, Xel had to admit that his groupmate was correct. This project had a ridiculous prompt, something that he agreed sounded childish, especially for those in his year. 

**_Choose a role model, someone you look up to and love. What makes them special? Write a five-paragraph essay about this person, then present them to the class._ **

As well as being more knowledgeable in climate change than in role models, Xel also had no creativity, and couldn’t really think of anyone who he looked up to.

On second thought, maybe his brother? It was fairly impressive for Doc to be paying rent and working full time at the young age of 20. Plus, he had to take care of himself, his little brother, and their two cats, Maui and Pearl. 

He withheld a bitter smile. Of course, the guys he was working with wouldn’t want to present about their families. Knowing the other groups he’s worked with, they would be interested in some sort of social media influencer, or maybe a sports figure which Xel knew nothing of. 

Finally forcing himself back to reality, he unconsciously examined the rest of his equally bored group. Many of them were students that he had seen before, but didn’t personally know, while some were completely new to him. 

The guy that hit his book on the desk had large, dark eyes, and seemed to enjoy bossing people around (not that he was good at it). He had short, chocolate colored brown hair. The shirt that he wore identified him as a Minecraft nerd, and the back had a yellow letter i  on it, which most likely had something to do with his name. 

Next was only girl there, sitting to the right of the “group leader”. Her hair was done in a neatly-brushed brown bob, and a chipper smile never left her face. She wore a pink cardigan over a white undershirt, as well as blue shorts. Her grey high-tops were neatly laced up. 

To the right of her sat a guy in a mud-colored T-shirt and shorts. He rested his head on an intricate helmet with a purple visor, the color similar to the eyes of the person in question. He looked to be a football player or a wrestler, judging from the unruly state of his clothes as well as the shoulder and knee pads that he had on. 

On the other side of the i shirt  guy was a boy in a large cowboy hat, its shadow covering his face. Under the accessory, Xel could spot a flash of emerald colored eyes and a long, pale scar, stretching across his groupmate’s face. 

A guy with a ponytail and sky-blue eyes covered by dark shades sat next to him. He emitted a very laid-back and uncaring energy. His clothes included a red shirt under a pair of overalls, as well as a large, expensive-looking watch on his right wrist. The red sneakers he wore looked faded and old, although still in fairly good shape. 

Finally, there was Iskall, their dark hair styled in a man-bun. The Swede was the only person in his group that he actually knew, but that wasn’t saying much. They were practically his only friend in the entire school, seeing as Xel was quite the social outcast. 

Xelqua found himself back on the same train of thought as earlier. He supposed that Iskall was role-model worthy. As well as being bilingual, his friend was clever and amusing, and never failed to cheer anyone up after a bad day. 

They would be even cooler if they stopped poking fun at Xel’s height all the time. 

He hissed in pain as Iskall poked him in the ribs with a pen, the loud noise drawing the group’s attention. 

“Have you got an idea?”, asked the group’s so-called leader, rolling his eyes. 

Xel put his hands up in surrender. “N-no, sorry...”

With a sigh of disappointment, the i shirt  guy turned back to the rest of them, animatedly gesturing with his arms. “Are you kidding? We don’t have anyone to talk about!”

After a brief, somewhat awkward silence, cowboy guy raised his hand. The girl in the cardigan sweater gave him a reassuring smile. “Have  _you_ got an idea?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly regretting speaking up. “....I guess there’s someone...” he mumbled, turning red. 

“Yes?”

He met her gaze with shining green eyes. “It’s kinda stupid though. He’s... a youtuber. He plays Minecraft.”

The creeper guy looked more interested than ever. “Really? Who?”

A faint pulse of dread echoed in Xelqua’s mind. “Oh?” 

He knew that it was extremely unlikely that the guy watched his channel, so that wasn’t really what grabbed his attention. He was more surprised that his groupmate played Minecraft at all!

The guy pulled his hat back to show more of his face. He felt emboldened by the positive attention. 

“Yeah, his name’s Grian.”

_...oh no._


End file.
